On the 10th of October, Afrobarometer (a Pan-African series of national public attitude surveys) released the results of a survey it carried out on the upcoming Botswana election.

Conducted between July and August this year, the survey had a sample size of 1,200 adult Batswana according to information on their website. In terms of the representative nature of the survey, a sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.

The survey suggests that the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is likely to have a landslide victory in the upcoming elections.

New Kid on the Block

2% of the respondents from the survey indicated that they would vote for the Khama led Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF). Afrobarometer indicated that this is also largely due to the fact that at the time of the survey, the BPF had not made much traction in the country.

Political Party Affiliation

According to the survey, a majority of 56% indicated that they identify with the ruling party, whilst 22% indicated that they feel closer to UDC as indicated below:

Hypothetical Botswana Election

One of the findings based on hypothetical Botswana election outcomes as follows in the figure below:

Even though the survey is arguably inclusive of participants across the demographic, the sample size leaves a lot to be desired. Another notable flaw has to do with the different political parties included in the survey. This was found problematic for the survey, despite the reasoning behind it.

Although the latter perhaps catered for the respondents who are still entangled with the nostalgia of pre-UDC coalition, it is not a good representation of the current political landscape. There are neither BCP nor BNF candidates who are registered under those party names. Therefore, the aforementioned countries as standalone parties from the UDC pose a duplication error when it comes to results.